I refer the hon. Member to the Guidance on the Management of Private Office Papers and the Guidance to departments on use of private emails.

Decisions about retaining emails are based on the importance of their content, including whether they are of historical interest and need permanent preservation at The National Archives. Following the merger of DFID and FCO on 2 September 2020 to form FCDO, legacy departmental email systems remain in operation pending a wider integration of IT systems. Emails on the former DFID system are automatically retained for 90 days before deletion, though staff can decide to store important emails for longer. In the former FCO there is no automatic retention or deletion of emails.

Departments are responsible for their own record keeping. Record management requirements do not differ between civil servants (including special advisers) and Ministers. The Cabinet Office has not issued cross-government guidance on how long emails should be retained.

During this period, we are asking schools to support children at home who are eligible for and claiming benefits-related free school meals by providing meals or food parcels through their existing food providers wherever possible. However, we recognise that providing meals and food parcels is not a practicable option for all schools. That is why on 31 March, we launched a national voucher scheme as an alternative option, with costs covered by the department.

For the national voucher scheme, our supplier, Edenred, has indicated that orders are processed within four days. The latest information provided by Edenred indicates that parents and schools are facing minimal or no waiting time for orders that are placed online, despite continued growth in the number of parents and schools using the scheme.

We do not hold data regarding the timescale of individual hard bounces, but we can confirm that Edenred acted promptly upon discovering the issue. On 7 May, Edenred issued communications to schools with hard bounce backs to let them know that they had input incorrect parent email addresses. Further to this, in the week commencing 11 May, Edenred issued additional communications to schools to address a number of incomplete orders which required further action from the schools, and again highlighted that some orders used incorrect or invalid parent email addresses.

We are continuing to work very closely with Edenred to improve the performance of the national voucher scheme. The scheme continues to get easier and faster to use, putting supermarket vouchers into the hands of thousands of families and schools.

The department is closely monitoring the delivery of the national voucher scheme. However, we do not hold information on provision for each eligible family.

As of Wednesday 3 June, Edenred has reported that over £129 million worth of voucher codes had been redeemed into supermarket e-gift cards by schools and families through the scheme. Edenred has reported that over 17,500 schools had placed orders for the scheme as of Tuesday 26 May.

These are rapidly developing circumstances. We continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.

Voucher codes are being processed through the national scheme and many thousands of families are redeeming them. Our national voucher scheme supplier, Edenred, has reported that over £110 million worth of voucher codes has been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme as of the 27 May. We have been working closely with Edenred to improve the scheme, and the programme of developments has significantly increased the speed of access to the platforms, processing times for orders and distribution of valuable support to families.

As part of this ongoing focus, over the weekend of 2 and 3 May, Edenred identified that a number of eCode emails had ‘hard bounced’, meaning that the eCode had not been delivered as schools had entered an incorrect email address for the parent or carer. On 7 May, Edenred contacted all schools affected to alert them and to provide guidance on how they could issue new eCodes to families. Edenred continue to engage with the relevant schools via telephone and to raise the subject in emails to schools.

These are rapidly developing circumstances; we continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.